Results

CEP discussion paper

Asymmetric pass-through and competition

We study the retail price pass-through of four major tax changes in petroleum products using daily pricing data from gas stations on small Greek islands. We find that (i) the pass-through of the tax hikes is five times h...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization: Forthcoming

Is having an expert "friend" enough? An analysis of consumer switching behavior in mobile telephony

We present novel evidence from a large panel of UK consumers who receive personalized reminders from a specialist price-comparison website about the precise amount they could save by switching to their best-suited altern...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is having an expert "friend" enough? An analysis of consumer switching behavior in mobile telephony

We present novel evidence from a large panel of UK consumers who receive personalized reminders from a specialist price-comparison website about the precise amount they could save by switching to their best-suited altern...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Loss aversion and consumer inertia: new evidence from phone subscriptions

Across a range of everyday markets, consumers make recurrent tariff choices in the face of a multitude of fees and plans, leading to concerns they may fail to make optimal choices of suppliers or contracts. Christos Gena...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Competition and pass-through: lessons from the Greek islands

Although theoretical analysis shows that competition is a key determinant of how firms pass through changes in tax rates to consumers, empirical evidence is scant. This column explores changes in the excise duty on petro...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

VAT pass-through and competition: evidence from the Greek Islands

We examine how competition affects VAT pass-through in isolated oligopolistic markets as defined by the Greek islands. Using daily gasoline prices and a difference-in-differences methodology, we investigate how changes i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating merger effects

This paper proposes a new algorithm with which to identify the potential effect of mergers by comparing the outcomes of interest in areas of overlap for the merging parties vis-a-vis areas of no overlap within a differen...Read more...

Journal article

Managerial and Decision Economics: Forthcoming

Evaluating merger effects

This paper proposes a new algorithm to identify the potential effect of mergers by comparing the outcomes of interest in areas of overlap for the merging parties vis-a-vis areas where no overlap exists within a differenc...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics :

Competition and pass-through: evidence from isolated markets

We measure how pass-through varies with competition in isolated oligopolistic markets with captive consumers. Using daily pricing data from gas stations on small Greek islands, we study how unanticipated and exogenous ch...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Confusopoly: how mobile phone companies use product complexity to raise prices

Confusing consumers can be profitable for companies, particularly in a highly competitive market. Christos Genakos, Tobias Kretschmer and Ambre Nicolle find evidence that, for a period, phone operators decreased the tran...Read more...

Blog

LSE Europp:

Evidence from Greece: the potential pitfalls of using education as a welfare policy instrument

Policymakers frequently use education as a welfare policy instrument. But can these policies have unintended consequences? Christos Genakos and Eleni Kyrkopoulou present findings from a case study in Greece where a socia...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Social policy gone bad educationally: unintended peer effects from transferred students

What is the impact of an increase of lower-ability students in a university class? We examine a natural experiment from Greece in which students from large, low-income families had the chance to transfer to academic prog...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

When oligopolies confuse consumers, beware the rise of confusopoly

Confusing consumers can be profitable for companies, in particular in a competitive market where they can hardly increase their prices without losing their consumers. Ambre Nicolle, Christos Genakos, and Tobias Kretschme...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Strategic confusopoly: evidence from the UK mobile market

Do firms strategically confuse their customers? Using a detailed dataset covering virtually all mobile phone tariffs and their handsets in the UK between January 2010 and September 2012, we examine the co-evolution of pr...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Competition and pass-through on the Greek islands

A fundamental issue in economics is how firms deal with unexpected cost increases, perhaps arising from taxes, exchange rate fluctuations or rising input prices: what drives the extent to which they pass the costs throug...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Generalized linear competition: from pass-through to policy

Economic policy and shifts in input market prices often have significant effects on the marginal costs of firms and can prompt strategic responses that make their impact hard to predict. We introduce "generalized linear ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Competition and pass-through: evidence from isolated markets

We measure how pass-through varies with competition in isolated oligopolistic markets with captive consumers. Using daily pricing data from gas stations on small Greek islands, we study how unanticipated and exogenous ch...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Leveraging Monopoly Power by Degrading Interoperability: Theory and Evidence from Computer Markets

When will a monopolist have incentives to leverage her/his market power in a primary market to foreclose competition in a complementary market by degrading compatibility/interoperability of her/his products with those of...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Industrial Economics:

The Impact of Maximum Markup Regulation on Prices

Markup regulation is a common, yet understudied type of regulation. We analyze the repeal of maximum wholesale and retail markup regulation in an oligopolistic and vertically nonintegrated market. By comparing the prices...Read more...

Journal article

Economic Policy:

Evaluating market consolidation in mobile communications

We study the dual relationship between market structure and prices and between market structure and investment in mobile telecommunications. Using a uniquely constructed panel of mobile operators' prices and accounting i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating market consolidation in mobile communications

We study the dual relationship between market structure and prices and between market structure and investment in mobile telecommunications. Using a uniquely constructed panel of mobile operators’ prices and accounting i...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What makes consumers switch mobile phone tariffs?

The potential psychological pain of nasty surprises on mobile phone bills is a great motivator to switch tariffs, according to research by Christos Genakos and colleagues. Their study notes that navigating through thousa...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Regulatory reform in Greece: the benefits of removing maximum mark-ups

Regulations that impose maximum mark-ups are intended to protect consumers from firms exercising market power. But a study by Christos Genakos and colleagues suggests that they can have the opposite effect: when Greece l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Loss aversion on the phone

We analyze consumer switching between mobile tariff plans using consumer-level panel data. Consumers receive reminders from a specialist price-comparison website about the precise amount they could save by switching to a...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Evaluating a Decade of Mobile Termination Rate Regulation

We re-consider the impact that regulation of call termination on mobile phones has had on mobile customers' bills. Using a large panel covering 27 countries, we find that the 'waterbed' phenomenon, initially observed unt...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

When pressure sinks performance: evidence from diving competitions

Tournaments are designed to enhance participants’ effort and productivity. However, ranking near the top may increase psychological pressure and reduce performance. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on perf...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating the impact of Sunday trading deregulation

During the past few decades a number of European countries lifted the regulations that restricted the opening hours of shops on Sunday. In this paper we examine the impact of Sunday trade deregulation on employment, expe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of maximum markup regulation on prices

Markup regulation is a common yet understudied type of regulation. We analyze the repeal of maximum wholesale and retail markup regulation in an oligopolistic and vertically non-integrated market. By comparing the prices...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating a decade of mobile termination rate regulation

We re-consider the impact that regulation of call termination on mobile phones has had on mobile customers’ bills. Using a large panel covering 27 countries, we find that the “waterbed” phenomenon, initially observed unt...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Management Practices Across Firms and Countries

For the last decade we have been using double-blind survey techniques and randomized sampling to construct management data on over 10,000 organizations across twenty countries. On average, we find that in manufacturing A...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Leveraging Monopoly Power by Degrading Interoperability: Theory and Evidence from Computer Markets

When will a monopolist have incentives to leverage his market power in a primary market to foreclose competition in a complementary market by degrading compatibility/interoperability of his products with those of her riv...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Seesaw in the Air: Interconnection Regulation and the Structure of Mobile Tariffs

Interconnection rates are a key variable in telecommunications markets. Every call that is placed must be terminated by the network of the receiving party, thus the termination end has the characteristic of an economic b...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Modern management: good for the environment or just hot air?

Nick Bloom and colleagues examine whether well-managed firms are more or less energy-efficient than badly managed firms...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Interim Rank, Risk Taking and Performance in Dynamic Tournaments

Little is known about the effects of revealing information on relative performance during a dynamic tournament. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on risk taking and performance using data on professionals c...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Weightlifting competitions: lessons for performance management

Christos Genakos and Mario Pagliero look at professional weightlifters to assess the effects of reward systems based on relative performance....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?

We use an innovative methodology to measure management practices in over 300 manufacturing firms in the UK. We then match this management data to production and energy usage information for establishments owned by these ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Regulating the mobile phone industry: beware the 'waterbed' effect

Christos Genakos and Tommaso Valletti examine the impact of recent price cap regulation...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What drives good management around the world?

CEP's global survey of over 4,000 firms reveals huge variations in the quality of management practices...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Testing the 'Waterbed' Effect in Mobile Telephony

This paper examines the impact of regulatory intervention to cut termination rates of calls from fixed lines to mobile phones. Under quite general conditions of competition, theory suggests that lower termination charges...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The European Commission versus Microsoft: Competition policy in high-tech industries

The antitrust cases against Microsoft in the United States and Europe have been the most high profile implementation of competition law in the last 20 years. Christos Genakos, Kai Uwe Kühn and John Van Reenen look at the...Read more...